Читать книгу The Girl Who Saved Christmas - Matt Haig - Страница 8

One year later . . .

Dear Father Christmas,

Hello, my name is Amelia Wishart. I am nine years old and I live at 99 Haberdashery Road in London.

You know this because you have been here. Last year. When you gave me presents. That was very kind. I always believed that magical things were possible, even when times were hard, so it was so wonderful to see it was true.

THANK YOU.

Anyway, I live with my mum Jane and my cat Captain Soot. I found Captain Soot up a chimney. You see, chimneys are rarely straight up and down. Sometimes they have sideways bits. Did you meet him? He is great.

But he sometimes steals sardines from the fishmonger and gets into fights with street cats and I think he thinks he’s a dog.

I know you are a busy man so I will just tell you what I would like for Christmas. I would like:

1 A new brush for sweeping chimneys

2 A spinning top

3 A book by Charles Dickens (my favourite author)

4 For my ma to get better

Number 4 is quite important. It’s more important than number 2. You can keep the spinning top.

It really was a magical thing to wake up to those presents last year.

Ma was a chimney sweep and now I am too. She can’t go up chimneys anymore. She can’t do anything anymore except lie in bed and cough. The doctor says only a miracle will fix her. But miracles need magic, don’t they? And you are the only person I know who can do magic. So that is all I want. I want you to make Ma well again, before it is too late.

That is the main thing I ask.

Yours faithfully,

Amelia

The Trembling Ground

ather Christmas folded up Amelia’s letter and put it in his pocket.

He walked through the snow-covered Reindeer Field and past the frozen lake, looking around at all the quiet sights of Elfhelm. The wooden village hall. The clog shops and the Bank of Chocolate and the Figgy Pudding café on the Main Path, not open for another hour. The School of Sleighcraft and the University of Advanced Toymaking. The tall (by elf standards) offices of the Daily Snow on Vodol Street. Its walls of reinforced gingerbread, shining orange in the clear morning light.

Then, as he trod through the snow, turning west towards the Toy Workshop and the wooded pixie hills beyond, he saw an elf in a brown tunic and brown clogs walking towards him. The elf wore glasses and was a bit short-sighted so didn’t see Father Christmas.

‘Hello, Humdrum!’ said Father Christmas.

The elf jumped in shock.

‘Oh, h-hello, Father Christmas. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there. I’ve just been on a nightshift.’

Humdrum was one of the hardest working elves at the Toy Workshop. He was quite a strange, nervous little elf, but Father Christmas liked him a lot. As the Assistant Deputy Chief Maker of Toys That Spin or Bounce, he was a very busy member of the workshop, and never complained about working overnight.

‘Everything all right at the workshop?’ asked Father Christmas.

‘Oh yes. All the toys that spin are spinning and all the toys that bounce are bouncing. There was a little bit of a problem with some of the tennis balls but we’ve fixed it now. They are bouncier than ever. The human children will love them.’

‘Jolly good. Well, you go home and get some sleep. And wish Noosh and Little Mim a “Merry Christmas” from me.’

‘I will, Father Christmas. They will be very pleased. Especially Mim. His favourite new thing is a jigsaw with your face on it. Jiggle the jigsaw-maker made it especially for him.’

Father Christmas blushed. ‘Ho ho . . . Merry Christmas, Humdrum!’

‘Merry Christmas, Father Christmas!’

And just as they said goodbye they both felt something. A faint wobbling in their legs, as if the earth was shaking a little bit. Humdrum thought it was just because he was so tired. Father Christmas thought it was because he was so excited about the big day and night he had ahead of him. Neither said anything.

The Toy Workshop

he Toy Workshop was the largest building in Elfhelm, bigger even than the Village Hall and the Daily Snow offices. It had a vast tower and a main hall, all covered in snow.

Father Christmas stepped inside and saw the preparations were in full swing.

He saw happy, laughing, singing elves doing final toy tests: taking off dolls’ heads; testing spinning tops; rocking on rocking horses; speed-reading books; plucking satsumas from satsuma trees; cuddling cuddly toys; bouncing balls . . . Music was provided in the form of Elfhelm’s favourite band, the Sleigh Belles, who were singing one of their favourites, ‘It’s Very Nearly Christmas (I’m So Excited I Have Wet My Tunic)’.

Father Christmas placed his sack down on the floor at the front of the room.

‘Good morning, Father Christmas,’ shouted one elf, called Dimple, with a cheery smile. Dimple’s name was easy to remember because she had dimples in her cheeks whenever she smiled, which was always. She was sitting next to Bella, the joke writer, who was working on her last joke of the year and chuckling to herself as she ate a mince pie.

Dimple offered Father Christmas a peppermint and when he opened the lid of the peppermint jar a toy snake popped out. ‘Aaagh!’ said Father Christmas.

Dimple was now on the floor in hysterics.

‘Ho ho ho,’ said Father Christmas, and tried to mean it. ‘How many of them do we have?’

‘Seventy-eight thousand six hundred and forty-seven.’

‘Very good.’

And then the Sleigh Belles saw him across the room and instantly changed their song to ‘Hero In The Red Coat’ which was a tribute to Father Christmas. It wasn’t the Sleigh Belles’ best song, but all the elves started singing.

‘There’s a man who’s dressed in red,

With gifts for those asleep in bed.

A tall man with a snow-white beard,

Whose ears are round and rather weird.

He showed us elves that there’s a way,

To make life as happy as Christmas Day.

He and his reindeer travel the world,

Giving presents to every boy and girl.

As all their hopes and dreams take float,

We all like to thank . . .

(Is it a goat?)

No!

It’s THE HERO IN THE RED COAT!’

As the elves cheered, Father Christmas was a bit embarrassed and didn’t know where to look, so he looked out of a window. He saw someone outside running across the snow towards the workhouse. No one else had noticed, as no one else was tall enough to see out of the window.

It wasn’t an elf, Father Christmas knew that. It was even smaller. Too light. Too graceful. Too stylish. Too yellow. Too fast.

And then, realising who exactly it was, he left the workshop.

‘Back in a moment, you wonderful folk,’ he told the elves, as the music lulled. ‘And the infinity sack is there so you can start dropping toys in it . . .’

By the time Father Christmas opened the door, she was there, hands on her little hips, bent double, breathless.

‘Truth Pixie!’ he said, happy to see her. After all, it wasn’t often a pixie entered Elfhelm. ‘Happy Christmas!’

The Truth Pixie’s eyes, which were always huge, were even wider than they were normally.

‘No,’ she said, staring up at Father Christmas, from the height of his knees.

‘What?’

‘No. It’s not a happy Christmas.’

The Truth Pixie stared inside the Toy Workshop and saw all the elves and felt a bit itchy, because she didn’t like elves very much, and they gave her a bit of a rash.

‘I’ve got a new suit,’ said Father Christmas. ‘It’s even redder than it was before. And look at this fur trim. Do you like it?’

The Truth Pixie shook her head. She didn’t mean to be rude, but she had to tell the truth. ‘No. I don’t like it at all. You look like a giant mouldy cloudberry. But that’s not the point.’

‘What is the point? You’re hardly ever in Elfhelm.’

‘That is because it is full of elves.’

Some of the elves had seen the Truth Pixie.

‘Merry Christmas, Truth Pixie!’

‘Idiots,’ mumbled the Truth Pixie.

Father Christmas sighed. He stepped outside onto the snow and closed the door behind him. ‘Listen, Truth Pixie, I would love to stay and chat, but it is Christmas Eve. I need to go and help get everything ready . . .’

Father Christmas noticed she was looking quite scared. He had never seen the Truth Pixie look scared before.

‘You need to forget about the Toy Workshop. You need to forget about Christmas. You need to get out of Elfhelm. You need to run for the hills.’

‘What are you talking about, Truth Pixie?’

And it was then that he heard it. A kind of grumbling sound.

‘I knew I should have had a bigger breakfast,’ he said, patting his stomach.

‘That wasn’t coming from you. It was coming from down there.’ The Truth Pixie pointed to the ground.

Father Christmas stared down at the fresh snow, as blank as a white page.

‘It’s happening even sooner than I thought,’ she squealed, and began running. She looked back over her shoulder. ‘Find a safe place! And hide! And I suppose you should tell the elves to hide too . . . And you better cancel Christmas before they do . . .’

‘They? Who are they?’ But the Truth Pixie had gone. Father Christmas chuckled, looking at the pixie’s tiny footprints in the snow heading back to the wooded hills. It was Christmas. The Truth Pixie had obviously been up all night drinking cinnamon syrup and was probably a bit confused.

Even so, he heard the rumbling noise again.

‘Oh, stomach, do be . . .’

But the noise was much louder and lower and suddenly not that stomachy. It was a very strange sound. He was sure it was nothing to worry about. But even so, he went back inside and quickly shut the door so he could hear nothing but the sounds of the Toy Workshop.

Mr Creeper

eventeen days after Amelia had sent her letter to Father Christmas, Amelia Wishart was where she very often was – inside a chimney.

It was dark inside chimneys. That was the first thing she had had to get used to. The darkness. Another thing was the size. Chimneys were always a bit too small, even if you were still a child. But the worst thing about being a chimney sweep was the soot. The black dust got everywhere once you started sweeping. In your hair, on your clothes, on your skin, in your eyes and mouth. It made you cough a horrid unstoppable cough, and made your eyes water. It was a horrible job but it was a job she needed. A job that could help her earn enough money for food and to get medicine for her mother.

And anyway, the thing about sweeping chimneys was that it made you enjoy daylight more. In fact, it made you enjoy being anywhere that wasn’t a chimney. It made you hope. Being in the sooty darkness made you dream of all the exotic and light places in the world.

It was certainly no place to be on the morning of Christmas Eve. Stuck there, knees and elbows rammed against the chimney walls, choking on the clouds of soot as she brushed.

Then she heard something.

A tiny little crying sound.

Not a human sound. But something else.

A miaow.

‘Oh no,’ she said, knowing exactly who it was.

She pressed her heels against the chimney wall and felt around with her free hand in the dark until she reached something soft and warm and furry, lying on a sloping shelf inside the crooked chimney.

‘Captain Soot! What have I told you? Never climb in chimneys! They are not for cats!’

Her cat began to purr as Amelia picked him up and carried him down towards the light of the living room. Captain Soot was black all over except for the white tip on the end of his tail. But today even that was as black as, well, soot.

The cat wriggled out of Amelia’s arms, did a twisting jump through the air, and started to walk across the room. Across the cream-coloured rug. The expensive cream-coloured rug. Amelia stared at the sooty paw prints in horror.

‘Oh no. Captain Soot! Come back! What are you doing?!’

Amelia went to get her cat but then of course she was getting the rug dirty too.

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Oh no, oh no, oh no . . .’

She quickly got a wet cloth from the kitchen, where a kitchen maid was peeling carrots.

‘I’m sorry,’ Amelia said. ‘I’ve just made a bit of a mess.’

The maid tutted and scowled, like a cross cat herself. ‘Mr Creeper won’t be happy when he gets back from the workhouse!’ Amelia went back to the living room and tried to clear up the soot, but all she did was make the black marks look even bigger.

‘We have to do this before Mr Creeper comes back,’ she told the cat. ‘Of all the houses to choose to do this in, Captain!’

The cat said sorry with its eyes.

‘It’s all right, you weren’t to know, but I bet Mr Creeper has got a temper.’

And as she kept scrubbing she realised there was something strange about this living room. It was Christmas Eve, and yet there wasn’t one single decoration. Not one Christmas card. No holly and ivy. No smell of mince pies. Now, in a rich house like this one, this was quite unusual.

Then Amelia heard a noise from the hallway. She turned as the living-room door opened, and there stood Mr Creeper.

Amelia stared up at the man. He was a long man. He had a long body. And a long, narrow face. And a long, crooked nose. And a long black cane that, with his dark coat and dark top hat, made him look like a crow who had decided – one dreary Tuesday while eating a worm – to become a human.

Mr Creeper was staring at Amelia, the cat and the sooty footprints all over the floor.

‘I’m sorry,’ Amelia said. ‘It’s just my cat had followed me and he sneaked up the chimney.’

‘Do you know how much that rug cost?’

‘No, sir. But I’m cleaning it. Look, it’s coming off.’

Captain Soot hissed up at Mr Creeper. His hair stood on end. Captain Soot liked most people but he really didn’t like this long man.

‘Vile creature.’

‘He’s just trying to wish you Happy Christmas,’ Amelia said, trying to smile.

‘Christmas,’ said Mr Creeper, and his mouth twisted as if the word had a horrid taste. ‘Christmas is only happy if you are a fool. Or a child. And you are obviously both.’

Amelia knew who Mr Creeper was. He was the man who ran Creeper’s Workhouse, one of the largest workhouses in all of London. She also knew what a workhouse was. A workhouse was a horrible place. A workhouse was a place no one wanted to be but sometimes ended up if they became too poor or too ill or lost their home or their parents. It was a place where you had to work all day and eat disgusting food and hardly sleep and get punished all the time.

‘What a pair of grubby little animals you are!’

Captain Soot’s hair stood on end, making him look like a fluffy ball of anger.

‘He doesn’t like being called names, sir.’

Mr Creeper clearly did not like being talked to in this way by a child. Especially a poor one, dressed in sooty rags, whose cat had made a mess of his floor. ‘Stand up, girl.’

Amelia stood up.

‘How old are you?’

‘I’m ten, sir.’

Mr Creeper grabbed Amelia by the ear. ‘You are a liar.’

He bent down and squinted at her as if inspecting some dirt on his shoe. Amelia saw his crooked nose and wondered how it had broken. She silently wished she could have been there to see it happen. ‘I spoke to your mother. You are nine. A liar and a thief.’

Her ear felt like it was going to be pulled off. ‘Please, sir, that hurts, sir.’

‘I could have gone for another sweep when your mother fell ill,’ said Mr Creeper, letting go of Amelia and rubbing away the dirt from his hands. ‘But no, I said I’ll give this girl a go. What an absolute mistake. My workhouse is where you should be. Now, the money . . .’

‘It’s three pennies, sir. But as I made a bit of a mess you can have it half price.’

‘No.’

‘No what, sir?’

‘You’ve got it the wrong way round. You are the one who has to pay me.’

‘Why, sir?’

‘For ruining my rug.’

Amelia looked at the rug. It probably cost more than a chimney sweep could earn in ten years. She felt sad and angry. She had needed the three pennies from Mr Creeper to buy a figgy pudding for her and her mother tomorrow. They couldn’t afford a goose or a turkey but they could afford a Christmas pudding. Well, they would have done.

‘What money have you got in your pocket?’

‘None, sir.’

‘Liar. I can see the shape of a coin. Give it to me.’

Amelia dug in her pocket to produce the only coin she had. She stared at the face of Queen Victoria on the brown halfpenny.

Mr Creeper shook his head. And looked at her, as if he really was a crow and she was a worm. He grasped her ear again and twisted it. ‘Your mother really has been soft with you, hasn’t she? I always thought she was a weak kind of woman. I mean, your father obviously thought so. He didn’t stick around for either of you, did he?’

Amelia’s face reddened. She had never known her father except as a charcoal sketch her mother had drawn. He was dressed in a soldier’s uniform and was smiling. William Wishart looked like a hero and that was enough for her. He had been a soldier in the British Army and had gone to war in a very hot country called Burma. He had died there the year Amelia was born. She had imagined him being strong and noble and heroic and the exact opposite of Mr Creeper.

‘Your mother has not been a good one. Look at you. In your ragged trousers. You would hardly know you weren’t a boy. Your mother hasn’t taught you to be a girl, has she? At least she probably won’t be around for long . . .’

Even Captain Soot seemed cross about this and he pounced across the room and swiped at Mr Creeper, digging his claws into his black trousers and ripping the material. Mr Creeper pushed the cat away with his cane, and Amelia felt a red flash of rage. She jabbed the sooty bristles of her brush into Mr Creeper’s horrid face and kicked him in the shins. Then she kicked him again. And once more.

Mr Creeper coughed on soot. ‘YOU!’

Amelia wasn’t scared any more. She thought of her mother lying ill in bed. ‘Don’t. Talk. About. My. Ma!’

She threw the coin on the ground and stormed out of the room.

‘I’ll be seeing you.’

No, you won’t, Amelia thought, and hoped like mad that it was true, as Captain Soot trotted by her side, leaving sooty footprints all the way.

Outside, Amelia walked eastwards, through the dark and dirty streets towards her home on Haberdashery Road. The houses got smaller and shabbier and closer together. A small church hummed with the sound of ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’. As she walked she passed people setting up stalls for a Christmas market, girls in the street playing hopscotch, servants with geese from the butcher’s, a woman carrying a Christmas pudding, and a man waking up on a bench.

A chestnut seller called out, ‘Merry Christmas, love!’

Amelia smiled and tried to feel merry and Christmasy but it was hard. Far harder than it had been last year.

‘It’s Christmas Eve, love,’ said the chestnut seller. ‘Father Christmas will be coming tonight.’

Amelia smiled at the thought of Father Christmas. She raised her chimney brush and shouted, ‘Happy Christmas.’

Little Mim

ittle Mim was an elf.

As you could guess from his name Little Mim was, well, little, even by elf standards.

And young. He was younger than you. A lot younger. Three years old, to be exact. He had dark black hair that shone like lakes in moonlight and he smelled faintly of gingerbread. He went to the little kindergarten that was now part of the School of Sleighcraft, and lived in a small cottage just off the Street of Seven Curves in the middle of Elfhelm.

But today wasn’t a school day.

It was Christmas Eve. The most exciting day of the year. And this year it was the most exciting Christmas Eve there had ever been. At least for Little Mim. Because today he was going to see the Toy Workshop along with all the other elf children. You see, once Father Christmas’s sack had been filled with all the presents for the human children, the elf children were allowed to pick whichever toys they wanted. And Little Mim had never been to the Toy Workshop.

‘It’s Christmas Eve!’ he yelped as he jumped onto his parents’ bed. His parents’ bed, like most elf beds, was as bouncy as a trampoline, so the moment he jumped on it he bounced so high he hit his head on the ceiling and tore through a red and green paper chain that had been put up as part of the bedroom’s many Christmas decorations.

‘Little Mim, it’s too early,’ moaned his mother, Noosh, from beneath a tangled mess of dark hair. She pulled the pillow over her head.

‘Your mother’s right,’ said his father, Humdrum. He put on his glasses and nervously looked at his watch. ‘It’s a quarter past Very Early Indeed.’

Very Early Indeed was Humdrum’s least favourite hour of the day, especially today, because he had been working so late. He felt like he had only just got into bed. Which he had. He loved being the Assistant Deputy Chief Maker of Toys That Spin or Bounce, which paid a reasonable one hundred and fifty chocolate coins a week and was a nice kind of job to have. But he also loved sleep. And now it was his son who was spinning and bouncing, such was his excitement.

‘I love Christmas! It makes me feel sparkly!’ he was saying.

‘We all love Christmas, Little Mim. Just try and get back to sleep,’ said Noosh, from under the pillow. The pillow was embroidered with the words ‘It’s Always Christmas in Your Dreams’. Noosh was tired as well, as this was an equally busy time of year for her too. She had been up late talking to reindeer.

‘But, Mum! Come on. It’s nearly Christmas. We shouldn’t do any sleeping near Christmas. So we can make it last longer . . . Come on. Let’s build a snow elf.’

Noosh couldn’t help but smile at her son.

‘We build a snow elf every morning.’

Humdrum had fallen back asleep and was snoring. Noosh sighed because she knew this meant she wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep now. So she took the pillow off her face and got up to make Little Mim breakfast.

‘What were the reindeer saying?’ asked Little Mim, as he ate his jam and gingerbread on a wooden stool in the small kitchen. He was staring at a portrait of Father Christmas that had been painted by local elf artist Mother Miro. It was one of seven portraits they had of him, and even though they knew Father Christmas was very embarrassed whenever he went to an elf’s house and saw his own picture, they found it comforting having his strange bearded human face around.

‘The reindeer didn’t say much. They were very quiet. Comet seemed worried, which was unusual. And Blitzen was doing something strange.’

Mother Noosh was the Daily Snow’s Chief Reindeer Correspondent. Her job was to write articles about reindeer. The trouble was reindeer were really bad at interviews. The most you could get out of them was a grunt or a sigh or that funny kind of truffling sound that reindeer sometimes made. There was rarely a scandal unless you counted Blitzen doing a poo on Father Vodol’s front lawn. (Father Vodol was Noosh’s boss. And he had forbidden her from writing about that.) And a reindeer-related story never got near the front page, although there had been a little bit of interest in the fact that Cupid and Dancer kept falling in and out of love. And the annual School of Sleighcraft Reindeer and Sleigh Race had once made it to page four, but that was about it. Everyone knew that whichever elf had chosen Dasher would win, as he was the fastest reindeer by quite a way. It was officially the most boring job at the whole of the Daily Snow and Noosh wanted a more exciting role. Like Gingerbread Correspondent, or Toy Correspondent. But the thing she wanted to be more than anything was Troll Correspondent. She desperately wanted to be Troll Correspondent. It was the most dangerous of all jobs, because trolls were big and scary and had a long history of eating elves. But it was also the most important job, and by far the most exciting. And she wished every day that her boss would give her that job, but he never did. Father Vodol was a very grumpy boss. In fact he was the grumpiest elf in Elfhelm. And he hated Christmas.

‘What do you mean?’ wondered Little Mim, as his mother added ten spoonfuls of sugar to his cloudberry juice. ‘Why was Blitzen acting strange?’

‘He kept his head down. He kept looking at the ground. And he wasn’t looking for food. He seemed quite worried. They all did. And last year they had all been excited. And anyway he looked at me and made a sound.’

Little Mim laughed because he found this funny. But Little Mim found everything funny.

‘A bottom sound?’

‘No. A mouth sound. It was like this . . .’

Noosh did the sound. She put her lips together and made a truffling kind of worried-reindeer sound. Little Mim stopped laughing at this because it was quite a troubling kind of noise.

Little Mim had finished eating his gingerbread so, while his mother went to stand under the watering can in the bathroom, he played with a jigsaw. The jigsaw was another picture of Father Christmas. It had five thousand pieces and usually took Little Mim half an hour, which was quite slow for an elf. But then, just as he was working on piecing Father Christmas’s red coat together, something happened. Parts of the jigsaw were disappearing, dropping into blackness. There was now a hole where Father Christmas’s mouth should be. And the hole kept getting bigger as jigsaw pieces kept falling through the floor.

‘Mummy! The floor is eating Father Christmas!’

But Noosh couldn’t hear. She was in the shower, singing her favourite song by the Sleigh Belles. The song was called ‘Reindeer Over The Mountain.’

Little Mim pushed his jigsaw aside and saw a dark crack in the tiles that was getting wider. Just then his mother appeared in her green day tunic, drying her hair with a towel that had a picture of Blitzen, Father Christmas’s favourite reindeer, on it.

‘What’s that?’ Little Mim asked her.

Noosh was confused. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘In the floor. It ate my jigsaw.’

Noosh looked. It was a crack. Right there in the shining green and white tiles near the wall. And not just any old crack. This crack was getting bigger and bigger until it stretched all the way across the small kitchen.

‘What’s that?’ Little Mim asked again.

‘What?’

‘That sound.’

(Elves are very good at hearing, due to the clever curving of their ears, and child elves have slightly better hearing than fully grown elves. Which is why elf parents never talk nastily about their children.)

‘It might be your daddy snoring . . .’

But no. Now Noosh heard it. It was a very deep low sound, coming from somewhere below. Noosh knew in an instant what the sound was, and her whole body froze in shock.

‘Mummy?’

She looked at Little Mim and said one little word, ‘Trolls.’

Humdrum Gets Out of Bed

rolls.’

Even as Noosh said it she could hardly believe it. But she knew quite a lot about trolls. She had studied all there was to know. And she knew that although the Troll Valley was a long distance away, beyond the snowy wooded hills where the pixies lived, they mainly lived in caves that stretched deep under the ground. These caves stretched as far as Elfhelm.

‘The peace is over . . . We’ve all got to get out of here.’ She grabbed Little Mim’s hand and pulled him away, just as more cracks appeared, making the kitchen floor look like a giant spider’s web.

They ran into the family bedroom, which – as this was a small cottage with only one floor – was right next door.

‘Humdrum!’ shouted Noosh. ‘Humdrum!’

She ran to the small sink in the corner of the room and picked up a bar of elf soap (just like ordinary soap, but smelling of berries).

‘Daddy, you’ve got to get out of bed! Trolls!’ Little Mim shouted as he shook his father.

Humdrum kept snoring for a second or so until there was another roar from under the ground. And Little Mim and Noosh watched in horror as a crack started to appear in the bedroom floor. The floor was opening up and it was about to swallow the bed whole. The bed was perched delicately over the large hole now.

‘I had the most terrible dream,’ mumbled Humdrum, as he straightened his glasses. He opened his eyes and saw – there in real life – his wife and son screaming as a giant grey warty troll hand rose out of the bedroom floor to feel its way to the bed.

Noosh saw the vast size of the troll’s hand and knew instantly what kind of troll this was. It was an übertroll. The second largest and third stupidest of all seven troll species.

‘Humdrum, get off the bed now. You’ve got to run!’ screamed Noosh.

But it was too late. Noosh saw the hand grab her husband’s leg and start to pull him into the ground. Humdrum was not a particularly brave elf. He was scared of lots of things. Shadows. Loud music. The moon. Snowballs. So this was too much for him.

Noosh ran and grabbed Humdrum’s arm and tried to keep him in the room.

It was no good. Humdrum was inching further into the gap.

‘Hold on, my little shortbread,’ said Noosh, as she reached into her tunic pocket and pulled out the bar of soap. She rubbed it on the troll’s warty skin. The skin smoked and burned and went red.

The troll roared in pain deep below and the hand flinched open. Humdrum fell to the floor, free again.

‘Quick! Run!’ Noosh cried and the three of them ran out of the room, Humdrum just in his underwear, as the ground continued to thunder and crumble beneath their feet.

When they made it outside, Noosh saw cracks in the street. The ground was shaking like an earthquake. Other elves were out in the street.

‘Oh no!’ her husband wailed as they saw their neighbour’s house collapse. The wail got louder as their own house collapsed too. There was destruction and shaking all around them. Humdrum started to breathe really fast and turn a bit purple.

‘Calm breaths, Humdrum,’ said Noosh. ‘Close your eyes and think of gingerbread. Like Doctor Drabble said.’

Whole houses were disappearing into the ground. Noosh spotted someone she knew from the Daily Snow. A big-eared bald-headed elf running out of the largest house on the street.

This was Father Bottom. The Troll Correspondent. He was meant to be the biggest troll expert in Elfhelm. He was now running with his hands in the air screaming, ‘The trolls! The trolls! The trolls!’ And pushing everyone out the way as he did so.

And even in her panic Noosh thought, I really should have had his job.

‘Where shall we run to?’ asked Humdrum, looking petrified.

There was only one answer Noosh could give.

‘To Father Christmas!’

The Chamber Pot

o how did it go with Mr Creeper?’ Amelia’s mother asked from her bed between coughs as Amelia dealt with the chamber pot. The chamber pot was the round white tin pot they used to go to the toilet in. Amelia took the pot and opened the window and poured the yellow liquid out into the street.

‘Oi! Watch out!’ yelled a man below.

‘Oops. Sorry,’ said Amelia. Then she turned back to her mother and lied.

‘It was all right at Mr Creeper’s.’ She didn’t want to upset her mother with the truth.

‘I’m glad you liked him,’ her mother said, faintly, struggling for breath.

‘I wouldn’t go that far, Ma.’

‘Did you get the figgy pudding?’

Amelia said nothing.

‘I don’t think I’ll be able to eat tomorrow, anyway.’

Her mother was clearly struggling, but was determined to speak. ‘He has a workhouse . . . Mr Creeper.’

‘Hmmm.’

‘Listen, Amelia,’ she whispered, ‘I am not long for this world . . .’

Amelia could feel the tears in her eyes and tried to blink them away, so her mother couldn’t see. ‘Ma, don’t talk like that.’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘But, Ma.’

‘Now, let me finish. When I die I want you to be looked after. I don’t want you out on the streets. And even if you keep up your chimney sweeping you won’t be able to stay ’ere, so I’ve spoken with Mr Creeper . . .’

Amelia felt her whole body go stiff with terror, and it had nothing to do with the bed bugs she could see crawling over the bed sheets.

‘Stop this talk, Ma. You’re going to get better.’

Her mother coughed again. The coughing lasted a long time. ‘You’ll be safe there.’

Amelia put the chamber pot back under her mother’s bed. She stared at one of the bugs crawling on the sheets, going around in circles, before Captain Soot swiped it dead with his paw. She looked at her cat. He looked back at her. Captain Soot’s glassy eyes were wide with shock at the conversation. Amelia doubted that cats were allowed in workhouses. And even if they were, she never wanted Captain Soot – or herself – to end up there. Especially as Captain Soot really seemed to dislike Mr Creeper.

‘Come on, Ma, it’s Christmas Day tomorrow. Magic will happen, you’ll see. You’ve just got to believe . . . Christmas is when miracles can happen. Just wait, I promise . . .’ And Amelia smiled and thought of the letter she had sent Father Christmas. She tried her very hardest to believe a miracle could happen and that – even in a world full of people like Mr Creeper – magic was always possible.

Her Mother’s Hand (quite a short but very sad chapter)

t was an hour later. Amelia knelt and held her mother’s hand. She was getting worse minute by minute. Amelia couldn’t help but think of all the other – happier – times she had held her mother’s hand. Walking along the river. Going to the fair. Or when she had been little and her mother had held her hand after she’d had a bad dream. She remembered her mother’s finger doing circles on her palm as she sang ‘Ring a ring o’ roses’ in a soft voice to help her to sleep.

Her mother didn’t speak much now because it seemed to take too much energy. But Amelia could see from her mother’s frown that she had something to say.

Her mother shook her head. ‘Amelia, my love, I’m afraid this is the end.’

She was breathing slowly. She looked as pale as milk.

‘But you’re not coughing.’

Her mother smiled the faintest of smiles. Amelia could tell it was a great effort for her mother to speak.

‘Life will get better for you one day,’ she told her daughter, as she had told her many times recently. ‘Life is like a chimney – you sometimes have to get through the dark before you see the light.’

And her mother smiled a weak smile and closed her eyes and Amelia felt the hand she was holding grow heavy.

‘Ma, you can’t die. I won’t let you. Dying is absolutely forbidden. Do you hear me?’

Jane Wishart closed her eyes. ‘Be a good girl.’

And that was the last thing Amelia’s mother ever said to her. There was no sound to be heard except the tick tock of the clock out on the landing and the sound of sadness weeping out of Amelia.

The Barometer of Hope

ather Christmas walked hurriedly through the workshop. Elves were swarming around him.

‘Is that the infinity sack?’ a short barrelly elf asked him, pointing to the sack he was holding.

‘Yes it is, Rollo.’

‘It doesn’t look very big.’

‘No, it isn’t big. But it is infinite. You could fit a whole world in . . .’

And then the ground started to shake. Elves looked at each other with wider than usual eyes. Hobby horses clanked onto the ground. Toy carts slid back and forth across the stone floor. Rollo fell over hundreds of balls rolling across the floor and landed on his – fortunately large and cushiony – bottom. Then it went quiet and still again.

‘What was that?’ said Rollo.

‘I’m scared,’ said Dimple.

Bella started to cry.

Father Christmas turned to everyone.

‘Just a little tremor, folks. Nothing to worry about. Even the ground gets excited near Christmas! Carry on as normal. We have a very big day – and night – ahead of us.’

And then Father Christmas swung the infinity sack over his shoulder and travelled up the chimney to the top floor of the workshop tower, to the Toy Workshop headquarters.

The moment Father Christmas stepped out of the chimney and into the Toy Workshop headquarters he saw the wise old elf Father Topo standing on the stone floor and stroking his long white moustache.

‘All well, Father Topo?’ said Father Christmas.

‘Not exactly, Father Christmas. Didn’t you feel the ground shake just then? I thought the whole tower was going to collapse.’

‘Well, I felt a little tremor. But it will be fine. It must be all the magic in the air.’

‘Hmmm. About that,’ said Father Topo. ‘Look at the Barometer of Hope. ‘It should be bursting with light.’

He pointed at the Barometer of Hope, a small round glass jar positioned on a pole in the centre of the room.

The Barometer of Hope usually glowed with a dazzling display of multi-coloured, gently moving light. Green, purple, blue. These lights had been scooped up by Father Christmas from the Northern Lights in the sky above Finland. On Christmas Eve the light should almost be blinding, since it was fuelled by magic that grew out of hope and the goodness of elves, humans and all creatures.

But when Father Christmas looked up at the Barometer of Hope on this day there was just a faint wisp of glowing green, flickering like a weak flame.

‘Oh, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,’ Father Christmas said. ‘It’s glowing a little bit. It will pick up through the day. Come on, Father Topo. Cheer up! All the letters are still getting through!’

Just at that moment the normally smiling Mother Sparkle, from the letter room, ran into the headquarters, breathless. ‘Something’s going wrong! None of the letters are getting through to us. I’ve just heard from the letter catcher. They’re not getting over the mountain.’

Father Christmas smiled. ‘Oh well. The letters aren’t getting through and there is a little glitch with the Barometer of Hope. It’s not going to stop Chri . . .’

A distant but quite loud noise interrupted him. A roaring, crunching kind of noise. Father Christmas headed to the large window. In the distance he could see devastation on the Street of Seven Curves.

Whole houses were collapsing or disappearing into the ground. Elves were running along the cracking street in terror. Father Christmas gasped, and in no time at all Mother Sparkle and Father Topo were by his side.

Father Topo pulled his telescope from his top pocket. He saw a family running amid the chaos. And one of them was just in his underwear.

‘Oh no. Noosh, Humdrum, Little Mim.’

Noosh was Father Topo’s great-great-great-great-great granddaughter and the elf he loved most in the world.

It wasn’t just the Street of Seven Curves that was under attack. The buildings of the Main Path were going under too. Workers from the Bank of Chocolate ran for their lives just before the bank was swallowed up into the ground.

Father Christmas could see something else. Where the Bank of Chocolate had once stood. He saw something crash through the heap of bricks and dust. First, a huge swathe of what looked like wild black hair was poking out of the ground. And then, slowly, a warty forehead. The kind of forehead that could only belong to a troll.

Father Christmas saw a rock flying through the air, coming from beyond the hills. It was heading – wait, oh no – it was heading straight for the Toy Workshop. It smashed through the window. Father Christmas pushed Mother Sparkle over and landed on top of her as the rock landed on the floor. Now, Father Christmas was a lot larger and heavier than an elf, so he squashed Mother Sparkle, but it was better, and softer, than being squashed by the rock. He got to his feet and went to the control desk and looked at the buttons and pressed the red one that said, in really little letters, ‘VERY Serious Emergency!!!’

The bell above his head at the top of the tower started swinging at hyperspeed.

DINGDONGDINGDONGDINGDONG DINGDONGDINGDONGDING . . .

And it was then that Father Christmas noticed the Barometer of Hope had smashed on the floor. The last green wisp of magical light rose towards him and disappeared into the air right in front of his face.

The Flying Story Pixie

o, this was Elfhelm on Christmas Eve.

Shaking earth. Troll heads smashing up from below. Rocks and stones flying overhead. Buildings collapsing. Christmas puddings flying out of the Figgy Pudding café. Chocolate coins scattered on the ground. Elves carrying their children and running. The Sleigh Belles carrying their instruments on their heads, to avoid the raining rocks.

‘Elves!’ boomed Father Christmas. ‘Run to Reindeer Field! Everyone! Head to Reindeer Field!’

Father Topo was hugging Noosh and Little Mim, beside Father Christmas.

‘Oh no,’ said Humdrum, as the ground started to wobble beneath their feet again.

Noosh covered her son’s eyes. Then the bulk of the Toy Workshop collapsed into the ground.

Father Christmas saw something rising out of the wreckage. One, then two, no, actually three trolls. These weren’t big übertrolls. They were untertrolls, only three times the size of Father Christmas and nine times the size of an average elf. Well, technically there were four of them, because one of them had two heads. Another had only one eye. The third looked quite normal, for a troll, except for the one large yellow tooth sticking out from the side of her mouth. But each had warty rough skin and rotten teeth and dirty rags made from goatskin for clothes.

The one-eyed troll held a rock high in the air and let out a deep thunderous roar. He was looking at the one remaining building in Elfhelm that wasn’t yet destroyed. The five-storey office of the Daily Snow. He was about to throw the rock.

‘Listen, trolls, we mean you no harm,’ Father Christmas said.

The two-headed troll grabbed the one-eyed troll’s arm.

‘No, Thud,’ the two-headed troll said. Thud shrugged and put his arm down.

‘Thank you,’ said Father Christmas. ‘We just want a peaceful Christmas. We have no interest in the Troll Valley. Please . . .’

It was just at that point that Father Christmas heard something fluttering above. He looked up to see a creature a similar shape as the Truth Pixie, but this creature had wings and was much smaller. Four wings in total. Two sets of two. They were light, the wings, and you could see through them. They shone like glass, and the sun gleamed off them.

‘A Flying Story Pixie!’ said Noosh, who knew her pixies almost as well as she knew her trolls.

This pixie was circling around and giggling as she looked at all the mess the trolls had created. She flew down close to Thud’s head. Father Christmas saw this, and thought it was strange. Then the pixie disappeared, fast through the sky, heading into the trees on the snowy slopes of the pixie territory.

‘Be no Christmas this year!’ said Thud blankly. ‘No Christmas!’

‘What is your problem with Christmas?’ wondered Father Christmas, perhaps a little unwisely, as Thud was still holding the rock. ‘I thought trolls liked Christmas.’

Thud said nothing. Instead, he looked in the distance, somewhere towards all the elves in Reindeer Field. Then he made a massive grunting sound as he threw the rock high, high, high in the air. Everyone stared at the rock as it kept on going.

‘Oh no,’ said Father Topo, into Father Christmas’s ear.

But Father Christmas could see where the rock was headed. Not to the elves, not to the reindeer, not to the Daily Snow, but towards the field where his sleigh was parked. The rock landed with a smash that could be heard a mile away.

Thud and the other trolls stamped their feet in a crazy fashion, as if doing a kind of wild troll dance.

‘It’s a signal,’ Noosh said. She’d read about stomp signals in The Complete Trollpedia while training to be a journalist.

Below the earth there was another loud troll roar.

‘Stand back, everyone,’ Noosh warned, knowing what the sound was.

Then – pow! – a giant fist burst up through the ground. The grey fist alone was the size of one huge untertroll.

Humdrum was now crouched in a ball on the ground doing his breathing exercises while Little Mim said, ‘It’s all right, Daddy.’

‘Urgula, the Supreme Troll Leader,’ whispered Noosh. The fist disappeared back down into the ground, leaving nothing but a hole. Then the three above-ground trolls jumped, one after the other, down the hole. And the ground shook when they landed in the cave somewhere below.

Father Christmas looked around at all the worried elves and the destroyed buildings and the collapsed Toy Workshop and waited for a few moments. Everything was still. The trolls had left them alone.

‘They’ve gone,’ he said.

And he heard Little Mim’s faint mumble as she looked at the state of Elfhelm. ‘Everything’s gone.’

Father Christmas watched as a bouncy ball dropped out of the wreckage and rolled towards his feet.

Not quite everything.

A Knock at the Door

own in London, a tall, well-dressed almost-skeleton stood at the door of 99 Haberdashery Road. Wearing a long dark coat and top hat. He was carrying a Bible and a shining black cane. His eyes were as grey as the creeping London fog on the street behind him.

Amelia tried to shut the door but Mr Creeper was too quick.

His face was really close. She saw him better than ever. His eyes had dark heavy bags below them. His damaged nose was as bent as a knee. His cheeks were so sucked in he looked as if he was entirely made of skin and bone. ‘Never close the door on a gentleman. I am here to help you.’

Captain Soot was beside Amelia’s ankles. He flicked his tail in a kind of warning.

‘I don’t like you,’ the cat hissed. ‘I know who you are and I don’t like you one little bit. And I’m glad I ruined your rug.’

‘I am sorry about your mother,’ Mr Creeper said, not looking sorry or sad at all.

‘How did you know?’ Amelia said, looking down at his trousers. They were different to the ones Captain Soot had ripped earlier.

‘Word travels to me.’

‘Well, thank you, sir. Merry Christmas, sir.’

‘So you aren’t going to say sorry? For sticking your chimney brush in my face? For refusing my custom? For being a violent little brute?’

Amelia went to shut the door again but Mr Creeper grabbed her arm, tight.

‘Go away and leave me alone, you smell-fungus!’

‘You heard her,’ miaowed Captain Soot.

Mr Creeper’s smile had curled like a dead leaf under his broken nose. ‘No. Oh no. Unfortunately that is not possible. You are coming with me. You see, I have but one passion in this life. And that is the correction of mistakes. And your mother wants me to correct you. She told me that. You have too much of your father in you.’

Amelia knew her mother would never have spoken about her father in that way.

‘It’s my calling. At the workhouse we teach discipline. You are part of us now. It’s time to take you away.’ His nails dug into her arms.

No, it isn’t, thought Amelia.

She looked down at Captain Soot, her eyes pleading for help. The cat looked at her intensely then trotted off into the living room.

Good plan, Captain Soot, thought Amelia.

Amelia yanked her arm free from Mr Creeper’s tight grip and ran as fast as she could, into the tiny dark living room.

There were only two choices. The rotten old window or the small fireplace. Captain Soot was already at the fireplace.

‘Good cat.’

There was no way Mr Creeper could manage the chimney.

‘Get back here!’ said Mr Creeper, his long, crooked face glowering with hatred as he entered the room. ‘You little mucksnipe!’

‘Never!’ spat Amelia as Captain Soot hissed the same thing. She scooped Captain Soot up off the floor. ‘All right, Captain, let’s go.’ She crouched into the fireplace and disappeared into the darkness of the chimney.

Amelia placed her cat on her shoulder. ‘Stay still, and no claws,’ she said as she started to climb up using her elbows and pressing her feet against the sooty wall. It was extremely narrow, even by chimney standards, and the wall was crumbly and hard to stay steady against. She felt Mr Creeper’s hand grab her foot. For a scrawny man he had a very tight grip. He started to pull her down, and she felt the rough pain as her elbows scraped the chimney wall. Heart thudding, she kicked him away, three hard kicks, and lost a boot in the struggle.

‘Get back here, you demon child!’

But Amelia kept climbing up into the darkness. It was a tight squeeze, and got tighter as she neared the top. Captain Soot pushed his way through the chimney pot first. And Amelia then wriggled herself through. Amelia and Captain Soot had made it out into the light.

It was snowing now. Amelia blinked at the whiteness of the roof. Captain Soot ran along, making tiny footprints.

‘There you are!’ came a voice from the street below.

The snow was making the roof slippery. Even though she wasn’t a cat and even though she only had one boot on, Amelia managed to run along the ridge on top of the roof without falling. It was a long roof. But eventually it ended and she had to jump onto the next row of terraced houses.

‘After you,’ said Amelia. Captain Soot jumped and made it, easily. Then Amelia jumped. And she made it. Less easily.

A group of carol singers stopped singing ‘Silent Night’ and stared up at her. Breathless, she looked down to the street and saw Mr Creeper walking fast with his cane. She loved her mother and knew she had thought she was doing the best, but her mother hadn’t understood how horrible Mr Creeper was. Amelia’s mind was a storm of fear and panic and howling sadness.

‘Aaagh!’

She lost her footing and slid down the other side of the sloping roof.

She caught hold of something. Hard and wet and slippery. She didn’t know what. But then she lost hold of it and she was falling and landing flat on her back. Looking around, she realised she was in somebody’s backyard. Captain Soot ran after her and jumped and landed on her stomach.

‘It’s all right,’ he told her, in the language of cats. ‘You can do this.’

And Amelia understood him, for the first time in her life.

Amelia and Captain Soot got up and ran through the yard and into the passage behind the houses. They came out into India Street and heard the distant carol singers singing ‘Good King Wenceslas’. Amelia looked behind and saw no sign of Mr Creeper. She ran fast, into the unknown land of her future.

Father Vodol and his Long Words

ather Christmas stood beside his broken sleigh as his oldest reindeer companion Blitzen came up and nuzzled him.

‘It’s all right, Blitzen.’

The elves were all standing in the snow eating emergency sugar plums for comfort, waiting for Father Christmas to say something.

So he did.

‘Well.’ He smiled. ‘This has been a very unusual Christmas Eve. But it could be worse. Let’s try and look on the bright side.’

‘Bright side?’ scowled an elf in a black tunic and long dark beard and thick bushy eyebrows. ‘There is no bright side. It is a catastrophe. A calamity of epic proportions. A cataclysm. A ruination. A . . . a . . . poopleplex!’

Father Christmas sighed. Trust Father Vodol to try and bring everyone down further, while also showing off some very long words. Father Vodol was the elf who knew the most words. He knew all seventy-six million elf words, and sometimes even made some up, just to confuse people and sound really clever. Poopleplex wasn’t a real word, Father Christmas was sure of it.

Noosh noticed Father Vodol’s footprints in the snow. He had been walking from the west, from the hills, which was strange, as he was normally in the Daily Snow on Christmas Eve.

Father Christmas forced a smile. ‘Come now, Father Vodol. There is always a bright side. Look, the trolls have gone. We are all safe. Obviously we will have to find out why this happened. And we will. We will. But that is not for today. Yes, there were some injuries, but we have incredible Elfcare workers seeing to those. Doctor Drabble is on hand. And we have the reindeer. Some buildings are still standing. Well, the Daily Snow is still standing. Those who have lost their homes can sleep there as we rebuild, or stay at my house. My bed can sleep about eleven elves, at least. And I could always sleep on the trampoline. But, we must remember, it is Christmas Eve, and we have work to do.’

A gasp spread across the crowd. Even Blitzen seemed doubtful, and did a wee to show just how doubtful he was.

‘Christmas? Christmas!’ scowled Father Vodol. ‘You must be joking. There can’t be a Christmas now.’

‘Hooray!’ said Little Mim, who didn’t quite understand and just liked hearing the word. ‘Christmas! Daddy, it’s Christmas!’

Humdrum nodded and closed his eyes and tried to calm down by thinking of gingerbread.

Then Father Vodol stepped forward and muttered in a low voice, ‘It’s impossible.’

The crowd of elves gasped and parents put their hands over the ears of little ones.

‘Father Vodol, please, no swearing. There are children present,’ said Father Christmas, before continuing to address the crowd. ‘I understand that it looks . . . difficult. But I was once told by a very wise elf that there is no such thing as im . . . that word. And every human child in the world is depending on us tonight. We have to give them magic.’

‘I’m afraid Father Vodol might be right,’ said Father Topo.

The elves seemed baffled.

‘There are no toys!’

‘There is no sleigh!’

Father Christmas nodded. ‘Yes, there are concerns.’ He looked at the smashed-up sleigh. ‘The sleigh needs a bit of work. But we have the reindeer. And my good self. And the infinity sack. And there will be a whole world of hope. Every human child in the world will be filled with joy and excitement today. Later, when you look at the sky you will see the hope glowing in the air. The Northern Lights will be shining brighter than ever before.’

‘Not to be a party pooper,’ said Mother Breer, the beltmaker, ‘but if that was the case then none of this would have happened in the first place.’

Father Christmas felt the paper in his pocket. The letter he’d got from Amelia Wishart. Amelia had been the first child he’d ever given presents to. He looked at Father Topo, who reached up and put his hand on Father Christmas’s back. Or tried to. He could only really reach his bottom, which was a bit awkward.

‘Come on, elves,’ said Father Christmas. ‘You are elves. We’ve at least got to try. The humans need us. Now, any questions?’

Little Mim put up his hand.

‘Yes, Little Mim,’ said Father Christmas. ‘Fire away.’

‘Can you spickle dance?’ asked Little Mim. A few elves laughed. It was nice to think of spickle dancing on such an otherwise miserable day.

‘Spickle dance? Erm, well . . .’

‘I’ve never seen you spickle dance,’ the little elf went on.

‘Little Mim,’ whispered Noosh. ‘I don’t think this is the time for such a question.’

‘Little Mim, I am not an elf. Look at me. Look how tall I am. Look at my big belly. I mean, yes, I was drimwicked, but I still think spickle dancing is best left to elves.’

Little Mim looked sad. His smile faded. Even his pointy ears seemed to droop a little.

‘Spickle dancing is for everyone,’ chirped Little Mim. ‘That is the point of spickle dancing.’